Bruce’s Briefs

Not much going on in the way of sailboat racing this weekend which is probably a good thing as once again, there won’t be much wind in the Salish Sea. We’ve had our wind and rain for the week as a weak ridge of high pressure will build behind the very active front that came through on Wednesday. True, this brought some much-needed snow to the mountains and some rain to the lowlands however we are still over 7” behind for the year and if you’re going up to the mountains this weekend, take the rock skies. This ridge will shift slowly to the east bringing an offshore flow once it builds east of the Cascades. This will allow perfect conditions for the Christmas fleet as we move into the holiday and keep approaching systems at bay.

The surface analysis chart for today shows an interesting mash-up of systems with weak highs, weak lows, and stalled occluded fronts. One feature of note is that weak low-pressure system off the southern Oregon coast at 1019MB which is really high for a winter low-pressure system. As you go through the surface forecast charts you’ll notice the pressure gradient becomes weak to nonexistent over the next couple of days. Hence my favorite forecast from the NWS: Variable winds becoming light.

The long-range forecast does show another weak system coming in late Tuesday and into Wednesday. This is because the zonal flow of the jet stream will finally start to bend to the south off the West Coast and allow another series of systems to come ashore with yet another strong system coming into California.

Bruce Hedrick

Bruce has raced and cruised the Pacific Northwest his entire life. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science from the University of Washington in Biological Oceanography and learned meteorology “to keep from getting kicked around on the race course.” Bruce spent nearly two decades as Associate Publisher for Northwest Yachting Magazine, retiring in mid-2015, and was the chairman of the board of trustees for the Northwest Marine Trade Association in 2014. (photo of Bruce driving Playstation is a bit dated, but cool)

It might be a little cold outside, but it is certainly beautiful out on the water. Just enough wind to sail and not enough to make powerboating uncomfortable, plus the usual anchorages are for the most part fairly empty.

Earlier this week we had another bombogenesis event (pressure in the center of the low drops 24MB in 24 hours) that brought a record low pressure reading of 970MB to Crescent City and windspeeds near 95-knots in the peaks of the southern part of the Coast Range. This low with its attached cold front also brought much needed rain and snow to southern California.

The charts show a continued presence of high-pressure on the east side of the Cascades which will keep the cold air in place with an offshore flow coming off that high. Another low-pressure system will come into northern California over the next couple of days and with the jet stream and an upper-level low persisting over northern California there is a very slight possibility that we might get some light snow but it certainly last very long.

Next week will be an interesting week as starting on Tuesday we will have a series of low pressure systems take aim at the Salish Sea. Our Coastal buffer zone will continue to weaken these systems but it could be the start of the return to a wetter winter. We’ll see.

Enjoy the weekend.  

Bruce Hedrick

Bruce has raced and cruised the Pacific Northwest his entire life. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science from the University of Washington in Biological Oceanography and learned meteorology “to keep from getting kicked around on the race course.” Bruce spent nearly two decades as Associate Publisher for Northwest Yachting Magazine, retiring in mid-2015, and was the chairman of the board of trustees for the Northwest Marine Trade Association in 2014. (photo of Bruce driving Playstation is a bit dated, but cool)

Yesterday was lovely, this morning was beautiful, right now (Ed. note: noon), not so much. Don’t worry, this is a fast-moving front and pressure is already rising and as you can see from the current Sat Pic, it’s already clearing in the Straits. No surprise, when the front went past Race Rocks the post-frontal westerly filled in at 40-knots at the Race.

This morning’s surface analysis shows the front as well as a moderate (1034 MB) high-pressure system offshore. The surface forecast chart for tomorrow gets even more interesting as this high builds to 1041 MB which is a higher pressure than we had all summer. This is both good news and bad as this high will act as a pretty good block for the next batch of fronts headed our way. The 48-hour surface forecast chart for 27 Oct shows a very impressive low-pressure system (978 MB) in the mid-Pacific with an attached cold-front that extends from the Bering Sea south to Hawaii. This chart also shows that while this high is weakening over the Pacific it is still strong enough to drive this low and attached frontal system north and into Alaska. This will keep our weather very nice well into next week. This will be reinforced by the jet stream which will take a big bend around the high and then bend back to south and into the Pacific Northwest bringing cooler air with it, see the 27 Oct 500MB chart.

So what’s the bad news? This high is setting up right over that blob of warm water off of our coast and this high will slow the rate at which the blob is cooling. We have definitely made some progress compared to the Oct 3^rd SST Analysis, so we’ll see how this goes.

What does this mean for the weekend? We are done with the rain however the wind will continue to blow from the NNE for now in the central Sound and it will continue at 20-25 knots and slowly back to the NNW. The breeze will back off over the evening and by tomorrow morning it will be around 10-15 from the N. The breeze will slowly build into the 15-20 knot range by midday and into the afternoon while backing to the NNW. By mid-afternoon it could be up into the 20-25 knot range.

Sunday will follow the traditional pattern of easing northerlies following the first day that ridge rebuilds after frontal passage. There will still be northerlies but more in the 8-12 knot range in the morning with another slow build into the 10-18 knot range in the afternoon. The center Sound will have the most wind of all the Salish Sea area on Sunday. The rest of the Sea will be sunny and lighter breeze.

Enjoy the weekend.  

Bruce Hedrick

Bruce has raced and cruised the Pacific Northwest his entire life. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science from the University of Washington in Biological Oceanography and learned meteorology “to keep from getting kicked around on the race course.” Bruce spent nearly two decades as Associate Publisher for Northwest Yachting Magazine, retiring in mid-2015, and was the chairman of the board of trustees for the Northwest Marine Trade Association in 2014. (photo of Bruce driving Playstation is a bit dated, but cool)

Plenty of sailing going on around the Salish Sea this weekend and for the most part, there will be wind but it’s really a tale of two or more cities. The Harken / Pro-Tech Pumpkin Regatta at the West Vancouver Yacht Club will have over 230 young participants from all over the Pacific Northwest and over 100 volunteers to make this huge event happen and it should be a great one with the weather providing some great sailing. STYC will have its’ Fall Regatta with almost 50 boats signed up, unfortunately, the weather won’t be quite so cooperative.

This week we knew we’d have the first of a series of frontal systems come onshore and while we had 40+ knots from the SE at Smith Island, the rest of the area benefitted from having the coastal buffer zone weaken these fronts as they came onshore. The graph for West Point shows frontal passage occurred around 1700 hours yesterday which coincided with a peak gust at West Point of around 35 knots.  The baro is starting slowly back up and that will keep the post-frontal S-SW breezes over our area for the rest of the day. The central and eastern Strait of JdF and the San Juans could have Small Craft Advisories Saturday and Sunday for winds of 25-30 knots.

The Sea/Tac Radar and the color Sat Pic for today show a very clear correlation between cloud cover and active precipitation headed towards both Seattle and Vancouver. Precip will continue over the area for the entire weekend which is fine as we are still about 2 inches behind for the year in rainfall totals.

Today’s Surface Analysis Chart shows the remnants of yesterday’s front on the east side of the Cascades, as well as a weakened front moving towards the area with a number of notations of gales or developing gales in the North Pacific. As that 992MB low-pressure system continues to weaken and move to the east this will allow onshore flow to build over the offshore waters, fill down both the Strait of Georgia and the Strait of JdF, and around the bottom side of the Olympic Mountains. This will bring West to NW wind to the Strait of Georgia for Saturday giving the Pumpkin Bowlers 10-12 knots to start with and then building to 12-18 in the afternoon.

This is the bad news for the STYC Fall regatta as the flow down the Strait of JdF and the flow coming around the bottom of the Olympics have to meet somewhere and that somewhere will be right over central Puget Sound, hence light conditions for the area off of Shilshole. 

The Surface Forecast Chart for Sunday shows another frontal system approaching the Pacific Northwest.  This will bring a pre-frontal E-SE breeze to English Bay and the Pumpkin Bowlers. There is disagreement in the models about when the transition from W-NW to E-SE will occur however right now it looks like by 0800 Sunday there should be 8-12 knots for the SE which may build slightly to near 15 by late morning. As it gets closer to mid-afternoon the breeze will begin to ease and back to the East before becoming light and variable by late afternoon and into the early evening.

All in all, besides being damp, it’s like a great weekend for sailing just always check the conditions before you head out.     

Ed. Note: It’s also the first day of the Seattle Laser Fleet Frostbite series for Lasers and Aeros. Sign up at seattlelaserfleet.org. Show up for a noon start off Shilshole.

Bruce Hedrick

Bruce has raced and cruised the Pacific Northwest his entire life. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science from the University of Washington in Biological Oceanography and learned meteorology “to keep from getting kicked around on the race course.” Bruce spent nearly two decades as Associate Publisher for Northwest Yachting Magazine, retiring in mid-2015, and was the chairman of the board of trustees for the Northwest Marine Trade Association in 2014. (photo of Bruce driving Playstation is a bit dated, but cool)

This will be the first major windstorm for this winter and it looks like we could have 25-40 knots over the central Sound. So if you haven’t re-tied those mooring lines and added an extra fender or two, now would be a good time to do so!

You can see from the Surface Analysis from this morning and the Surface Forecast Chart for tomorrow that there will be a significant tightening of the pressure gradient as this front comes onshore. While we have gale warnings for the coast, the coastal buffer zone will weaken the front and leave us with a Small Craft Advisory for the inland waters.

Bruce Hedrick

Bruce has raced and cruised the Pacific Northwest his entire life. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science from the University of Washington in Biological Oceanography and learned meteorology “to keep from getting kicked around on the race course.” Bruce spent nearly two decades as Associate Publisher for Northwest Yachting Magazine, retiring in mid-2015, and was the chairman of the board of trustees for the Northwest Marine Trade Association in 2014. (photo of Bruce driving Playstation is a bit dated, but cool)